how to bend acrylic pipe perfectly step
one measure the inner diameter of your
pipe - 18 millimeter and outside is 22
millimeter
step 2 get a silicon rod that fits on
the inside of your pipe mine is a
medical silicone rod and it's exactly 18
millimeter step 3
cut your silicon rod to length and then
cut a taper at one side drill a hole
through the table side step 4 use a
really strong string and thread it
through that hole you just drilled in
the silicon rod I have noticed that
bending a thin metal wire and using that
as a kind of a needle really helps with
this step 5 here I'm putting some corn
flour starch on the silicon rod to make
it slide easier you can also try washing
up liquid or soapy water and that's all
preparation done so we can finally
thread our silicon rod through the
acrylic pipe put on some gloves and
start up your heat gun step 6
bending the acrylic pipe try to heat up
the acrylic pipe as evenly as you can
you can adjust the temperature by moving
the silicon rod closer or further away
from the heat gun and in my experience
the further away you are and the more
patience you spend and the slower you do
this step the better the result once you
feel that critics often hang up you can
do your band I like to try to stay in
the heat of the heat gun but a little
bit further away constantly keeping the
acrylic warm while I'm doing the band
and then removing the acrylic from the
heat gun when I'm happy with the shape
so this was my first try and it's not
perfect you can see here I let the heat
go a little bit too far so we have these
ugly bubbles and the whole pipe is a
little cloudy I think it was because my
gloves were really oily so I was a
stupid choice of gloves the corn flour
starch normally doesn't cloud my pipes
but for the second try I wanted to use
washing up liquid and clean gloves
instead let's see how that went for the
second try I went with a really tight
radius
as you can see here I think I got greedy
and went with a little bit too tight
radius the pipe looks clear though no
more cloudiness and I would recommend
you to order more material than what you
need for your project because you will
have some failed pipe practice makes
perfect
as always okay third time's the charm
whoever said that perfection does not
exist and that it's a fool's errand to
pursue it did not look at my son nail
picture in 4k resolution and way I hope
you enjoyed this tutorial it's a true
pleasure to bend acrylic pipes and now
you have to make up a project just to be
able to experience it the reason why I'm
bending so much acrylic pipe right now
is because of the marble machine axe
here I'm using bent acrylic pipe for
marble transportation connecting the
demagnetizer with the marble conveyor
belt and higher up on a machine have
connected the outlet from the conveyor
belt and the fish star with a marble
divider and also the marble divider
itself is made from bent PMA pipe
I have just started to work on the most
difficult acrylic pipe bending project
of the whole marble machine exfilled I
need to connect the marble spreader that
I built in plywood with these metal
rails and all the pipes want to collide
with each other I need to find perfect
routing for this to work here I'm
working on channel 22 which is the last
channel of the vibraphone and there's a
total of 38 channels
signed need to make 38 individual pipes
and I'm using a TIG filler rod to create
a band template to get a feel for what
kind of geometry I need a pipe to be
then I can use this plan template to
create a general shape for the pipe oh
oh oh hold on what's this beauty if you
remembered
I found this stud welding CNC machine
that I thought was amazing and I reached
out to them and as if they wanted to
collaborate and then something truly
beautiful happen because you the viewer
started to leave comments to HPS
explaining why they should collab with
me on the machine X my favorite was that
they should lift up an artist from the
sunken Coast vortex I went back to send
an email to HPS and when I opened my
email I found an email from HBS that's
thanks to all your comments thank you so
much for sticking up for the machine X
and thanks to HBS for being positive
towards the project I send some
requirements and they sent me this test
piece and I just want to show you how
extremely precise this is here I'm using
a micrometer which is measuring
millimeter when you hear the first click
of the clutch of the micrometer that's
when you should read your value 18 I'm
actually measuring quite crooked so if I
had a place to measure more straight we
would get even better result
this machine is down to thousands of a
millimeter in precision it's just so
promising
[Music]
we're looking at using my manual
programming pin system that I already
built for me when I'm composing music
for the machine X and then using this
more sturdy reliable pre-programmed
precise studwelding programming pin
system from HBS for the world tour so we
can have the best out of two worlds
there I'm completely sidetracked in this
video now I'm just so happy about this
prospect let's go back to some PMMA pipe
ending shall we
I'm using the template and creating the
general shape and here I'm making a
little mark so I can cut it to length
and then I can open the marble spreader
and see if the pipe fits and this first
pipe actually fits perfectly you can see
the marble is coming out there the first
type is easiest the consecutive pipes
are going to be much more difficult
because they have the problem of
colliding with each other this is the
moment where I realized I made three
pipes and I have 35 pipes to go
[Music]
[Applause]
in situations like this where I need to
do really repetitive work which happens
a lot on a marble machine next due to
its 38 channels I keep myself going by
repeating an inner mantra it goes like
this world tour world tour world tour
but seriously I totally underestimated
how time-consuming it was to make these
pipes so over eight hours later I had
managed to do 11 out of 38 pipes and had
to call it a day I will return to finish
this task as soon as possible but for
now I could just check the pipes I made
and they seem to work well
[Music]
at this moment I felt like a vampire it
was like two marbles showed me the way
out of my studio and into the Sun I
spent a little time inside my Studios I
was so happy strolling around with the
camera this is my apricot tree I found
the first effort of the other day you
see it there as an applicant there's a
huge growth here on the front of the
house
[Music]
I have my absolute here under the rose
he's having a good time there it's like
virginal just smelling the flowers BBC
parents are got nothing on me okay so
thank you so much for watching and
believing in the model
[Music]